‘Have cooperated with probe’: Jain moves Delhi High Court for bail

In his plea, Jain said he is not in a position to influence witnesses or tamper with evidence, and is not a flight risk if granted the relief in the case of ED’s enforcement case information report.

Jailed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Satyendar Jain has approached the Delhi high court, challenging a trial court order denying him bail in a money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

CCTV footage from Tihar jail shows then jail superintendent interacting with Satyendar Jain inside his prison cell. (ANI)

Jain has challenged the trial court’s November 17 order which dismissed his bail plea on the ground that he was prima facie involved in concealing the proceeds of crime.

In his plea, Jain said he is not in a position to influence witnesses or tamper with evidence, and is not a flight risk if granted the relief in the case of ED’s enforcement case information report (ECIR, the equivalent of a first information report) registered on September 30, 2017 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The plea is likely to come up for hearing later this week.

Jain is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. He was arrested by the ED on May 30, and is currently in judicial custody. He was granted regular bail by a trial court on September 6, 2019 in the case lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

In his petition, the AAP leader has claimed that since he was not in possession of any proceeds, the offence under the PMLA was not made out. It claimed that the special judge and ED have gravely misread and misapplied the PMLA by identifying proceeds of crime solely on the basis of accommodations entries which cannot itself lead to a punishable offence under the Act. Proceeds of crime under the PMLA have to be derived as a result of scheduled criminal activity, it said.

The trial court had said “prima facie” Jain was “actually involved in concealing the proceeds of crime by giving cash to Kolkata-based entry operators and thereafter, bringing the cash into three companies... against the sale of shares to show that income of these three companies was untainted one.”

“By this process, the proceeds of crime to the tune of 1/3rd of ₹4.61 crore has been laundered. Apart from that, Jain has also used the same modus operandi to convert his proceeds of crime of ₹15 lakh by receiving accommodation entries from Kolkata-based entry operators in his company by the name of J J Ideal Estate Pvt Ltd,” it had noted.

It had said that Jain had knowingly done such activity to obliterate the tracing of the source of ill-gotten money and accordingly the proceeds of crime were layered through Kolkata-based entry operators in a way that its source was difficult to decipher.

“Hence, applicant/accused Satyendar Kumar Jain has prima facie indulged in the offence of money laundering of more than ₹1 crore,” the trial court had said, adding that money laundering was a “serious economic offence”.The ED had arrested the accused in the money laundering case based on a CBI FIR lodged against Jain in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act.